Britain's warehouses must be ready to store weaponry, says former Cold War soldier
Britain's warehouse owners must be on standby to house weaponry for Western military, the chief executive of a major landlord has said.
Andrew Coombs heads up Sirius Real Estate and served in the Territorial Army (TA) during the Cold War. He said his company is factoring military storage into all its investment decisions in the face of Russian aggression, which has triggered a surge in defence spending across the UK and EU.
Germany has has pledged to ramp up its debt to fund €900bn (£750bn) in defence spending over the next decade, while Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, has also vowed to increase Britain's military budget to 2.5pc of GDP.
Mr Coombs said this will mean more money flowing into the UK to be spent on defence companies and equipment. Defence suppliers are enjoying a boom in demand, with Babcock securing a £1bn contract extension with the British Army on Wednesday, and Avon Technologies announcing a deal to supply Ukraine's military with gas masks.
He added: 'Whatever market you're in, whether you're in catering or you're BAE Systems, you won't be able to ignore €900bn of spending.
'If you own industrial and warehousing space, what you're going to find is a very small amount of that €900bn is going to end up being spent on storage and logistics in the UK.
'No matter what it is, spare parts for drones or ration packs that feed soldiers in the field, or spare kit. All of this stuff's got to be moved and stored.
'Defence logistics is not just pieces of metal, it's people with electronics, boots, respirators, canisters that need to be replaced on the respirators. The logistics are huge.'
Mr Coombs joined the TA aged 17 and was posted briefly to Berlin in 1982 during the Cold War. He joined the Grenadier Guards a year later, going on to serve in Central America and Northern Ireland, returning to the TA in 1987.
He left as platoon sergeant in 1992 and worked as a consultant before joining Sirius in 2010, growing the business to become a £1.3bn company owning business parks across Britain and Germany.
Mr Coombs said more carmakers will likely switch from automotive manufacturing to defence, after Volkswagen expressed its willingness earlier this month to build military equipment for the German army.
Mr Coombs said: 'The property industry generally isn't really awake to this. I'm very surprised by that.'
For Mr Coombs, Europe's efforts to rearm will also mean the British Army will need to deploy more troops to Germany and Poland. That would mean reclaiming many of the properties it has given up.
He said: 'The British Army used to have accommodation, exercise and training areas in Germany when the Army of the Rhine existed. They sold all those when we pulled out.
'We're going to need those back again, because we're going to need to put British troops into both Germany and Poland. Even if you put them in Poland, you need your logistics and supply lines back in Germany.'
Earlier this month, Sirius bought Chalcroft Business Park, a former ammunition depot near Southampton, for £40.5m. It is currently occupied, but Mr Coombs said the reasons for buying the site included its ability to store heavy military equipment and that it is connected to the port, giving the location a tactical advantage.
The landlord also owns Vantage Business Point, a former Royal Air Force station that later housed the headquarters of Xerox. Beyond Britain, Sirius has spent millions on buying business and industrial parks in Dresden in the past year.
Mr Coombs added: 'Everything we are spending money on at the moment, we're asking the question – in a defence logistics situation, how useful would this be? And if the answer is not very useful at all, we're hesitating. If the answer is very useful, then we're moving forward.
'We're not predicating our decisions on this, but we're not walking through this with our eyes closed.'
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